Raff was a Yuuzhan Vong male who functioned as a Battle Tactician under the command of Commander Tla during the initial period of the Yuuzhan Vong War. Following Shedao Shai's death on Ithor, Tla received a promotion, and based on Raff's counsel, launched an assault on Obroa-skai, a world renowned for its vast libraries. While at Obroa-skai, Raff oversaw the process of gathering the substantial amount of intelligence acquired from the planet's libraries and engaged in a discussion with Harrar, a priest, concerning the significance of the Jedi to the inhabitants of the galaxy.
This interaction marked the beginning of Raff's tentative involvement in Harrar's conspiracy to assassinate the Jedi. The plan involved Elan, the daughter of High Priest Jakan, feigning a "defection" to the New Republic. To make this defection appear authentic, a drawn-out series of staged re-capture attempts and battles were conducted. Despite his reservations, Raff advised Tla to allocate resources and time in support of Harrar's scheme, influenced by assurances from the priest and his associate, the executor Nom Anor, that the plan would eventually prove successful. However, Elan's deception was ultimately exposed, and she perished during a major space battle, rendering the entire operation a complete failure. Supreme Commander Nas Choka punished both Tla and Harrar, ordering their ignominious return to the Outer Rim Territories. Before their departure, Raff offered his opinion that Hutt Space presented a promising next target for the fleet.
Raff underwent rigorous escalation procedures to become a Battle Tactician, a class of warriors devoted to Yun-Yammka. He spent considerable time in communion with yammosks, the telepathic Yuuzhan Vong entities used to coordinate military forces, as well as dovin basals, the gravitic devices that enhanced the fleet's ships. Swirling tattoos were etched onto Raff's bald, deformed head to represent the complexity of his thoughts, and over the years, he cultivated an exceptional capacity for retaining a vast amount of knowledge. By the time his species initiated its invasion of the galaxy, as promised to the Yuuzhan Vong by Supreme Overlord Shimrra, Raff possessed extensive knowledge of the capabilities of the New Republic and its allies. He was assigned as tactician to Commander Tla, who had recently been promoted following Shedao Shai's failure at Ithor.
In 25 ABY, Raff advised Commander Tla to attack the library world of Obroa-skai, convinced that the wealth of information contained there, including charts, maps, and other data, would be crucial to the Yuuzhan Vong campaign. Tla swiftly executed the assault, and Obroa-skai was soon under their control. Raff then began the task of examining the contents of the captured libraries. This process was interrupted by the priest caste, who had been assigned to oversee the sacrifice of captives taken during the assault. Tla reluctantly allowed Harrar to remain on Obroa-skai, and Raff, as he continued to study the library's contents, shared the information he had uncovered with the priest. Harrar, after speaking with a captive H'kig Gotal, became particularly interested in the Jedi, and asked the tactician to elaborate on the nature of the enigmatic Jedi Order. Raff and Harrar discussed the purge that they believed had eliminated thousands of Jedi nearly half a century before the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. Harrar and the tactician, along with others, observed the sacrifice of thousands of captives via villip, and Raff assured the priest that he would examine the villip's images for omens and relay the information to Commander Tla, who held the priest caste in low regard.
However, the tactician grew uneasy as Harrar's obsession with the Jedi persisted. The priest devised a plan that would demand significant time and resources from both Tla and Raff. Using Elan, the daughter of High Priest Jakan, as an agent, Harrar intended to orchestrate a false defection. Elan would claim to possess knowledge about the illness afflicting Mara Jade Skywalker, the wife of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker—an illness actually caused by Yuuzhan Vong executor Nom Anor—and infiltrate the Jedi Order before eliminating them with a lethal virus, bo'tous, incubating within her lungs. Raff, however, believed that the plan would be excessively costly in terms of both resources and time, and that Elan's success was far from certain, given Jade Skywalker's continued survival as evidence of the Jedi's strength. Despite his reservations, the tactician ultimately yielded to Harrar and Nom Anor, the scheme's other architect.
Elan staged her defection during a brief skirmish with the New Republic in the Meridian sector. As Raff had foreseen, this success came at a cost. Harrar had insisted that the ship from which Elan "escaped" be destroyed to make the Yuuzhan Vong defeat appear more convincing. Commander Tla was enraged by the loss, and Raff became increasingly skeptical of the entire plot, criticizing Harrar for assuming that Elan was already trusted by the New Republic. However, there was a minor victory when Elan led the Yuuzhan Vong to the hidden New Republic world of Wayland, where a second staged conflict took place. An assassin from Domain Shai attempted to kill Elan, thereby enhancing her credibility. When she provided New Republic Intelligence with information that Ord Mantell was Tla's next target, she was believed. Raff accompanied the fleet to Ord Mantell, where they attacked to further bolster Elan's credibility. In service of Harrar's scheme, several ships were lost before Tla ordered a retreat. Although retribution was inflicted upon Ord Mantell and the New Republic forces present, Raff considered it a defeat, albeit a calculated one. The arrival of another commander, the decorated Malik Carr, provided an opportunity for the plotters to discuss the invasion's progress. Raff agreed with Harrar that caution was essential, as the shipyards at the conquered worlds of Sernpidal and Belkadan were overextended, and any delay would be detrimental to the Yuuzhan Vong. The tactician provided Carr with information on alternative targets, and Tla informed the other commander of the plan to eliminate the Jedi, acknowledging that the defenders had achieved several minor victories.
To Tla's delight and Raff's vindication, Harrar's scheme soon fell apart. The Peace Brigade, an organization ironically founded by Nom Anor himself, attempted to return Elan to the Yuuzhan Vong, believing her to be a genuine defector. During the ensuing battle on the outskirts of the Bilbringi system, Anor desperately tried to prevent a Peace Brigade shuttle from retrieving Elan, while simultaneously deploying his forces in a manner that suggested he wanted her recaptured, so as not to reveal the fraudulent nature of the prized defector to the New Republic. As Harrar and Anor struggled to maintain control of the situation, Raff offered advice, which was ignored. Consequently, the uninformed Peace Brigade operatives succeeded in recovering Elan despite Anor's constrained actions. Amidst the chaos of the battle, Elan died, having failed to kill even a single Jedi.
On Obroa-skai, Supreme Commander Nas Choka contacted the architects of the defection, and Harrar was compelled to explain himself to Elan's father, High Priest Jakan. Raff remained silent as Harrar was reprimanded, while Tla struggled to suppress his gloating over the priest's failure. However, when Choka summoned Tla and Raff to present their account, he addressed his inquiry to the latter. The tactician criticized the scheme, citing the excessive cost of the lost support vessels and coralskippers. Raff suggested either cannibalizing larger vessels to replenish the losses or suspending the invasion until additional resources could be acquired, proposing that Hutt Space offered an opportunity to obtain such resources. While Choka dismissed the idea of destroying larger vessels to replenish the fleet, he did dispatch Malik Carr into Hutt Space. Choka disregarded Raff's information that the New Republic was developing tactics to counter Yuuzhan Vong biotechnology. He punished Harrar and Commander Tla by ordering their return to the Outer Rim. Nom Anor escaped this fate, as he was placed under the authority of Drathul, a prefect of the intendant caste.
Coincidentally, Malik Carr joined Tla in disgrace several months later, following a significant defeat at Fondor. Commander Carr was recalled to Selvaris, a conquered backwater world, where he spent the next two years harboring resentment towards Raff, Harrar, and Tla.
Raff's intelligence and memory had been significantly enhanced, and as a result, the tactician frequently offered input and advice to those around him. His analytical nature was evident in his nervousness and tendency to voice his concerns, but his gaunt appearance and lisping voice often caused others to disregard his words, instead posing their own questions. Nevertheless, Raff was a cunning and astute member of his caste, and he managed to distance himself from Harrar's scheme. Demonstrating his intellect, Raff foresaw the failure of the false defection long before the events at Bilbringi. Consequently, in an attempt to minimize his punishment, Raff delivered his report to Nas Choka objectively, avoiding emphasis on his own considerable involvement in the plot.
Of the three novels that James Luceno wrote for The New Jedi Order series, Raff appears only in the first, and is briefly mentioned in the third, The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force. His fate following the failure of Harrar's scheme remains unspecified. While Tla, his commander, is recalled to the Outer Rim, Choka does not mention Raff's punishment, leaving it unclear whether the tactician accompanied Tla or remained on the front lines. Given that the Yuuzhan Vong typically punished individuals rather than their commands, the latter scenario is more probable. The image used in the article's infobox appeared in Star Wars Gamer 8.